Teddy Bear Toss Distribution; News Tribune

The News Tribune went along as UMD men's and women's hockey players handed out the stuffed animals that were thrown on the ice during the 'Teddy Bear Toss' this year.

There's a great ARTICLE in today's paper about their visit to St. Mary's hospital.

Just a small part OF that article:

For the children at St. Mary’s, MRIs, chemotherapy and IVs are an unfortunate part of everyday life.

However, for a few minutes, five UMD hockey players broke that routine by spreading some joy. Nick Kemp, Mitch Ryan, Matt Niskanen, Vacker and O’Toole didn’t wear Santa suits and bring elves — they wore their game jerseys and brought teddy bears. But the results were the same — smiling, laughing and thankful children caught up in a Christmas moment.

Go read the full article by clicking on this blog title

Midseason stats, from USCHO.COM

To check out the UMD Women's midseason stats go HERE.

7 players have double digit point totals, but the goal production needs to rise the 2nd half of the season

WCHA women's mid-season standings

Now that BSU has swept NoDak, the midseason standings, with most teams off for 3 weeks:

WCHA Women - 2006-2007 Standings

                         Conference Only                    
                    Pts  GP  Record  Win%  GF- GA   

 1 Wisconsin         27  16 12- 1- 3 .844  62- 25   
 2 Minnesota         23  14 11- 2- 1 .821  49- 22   
 3 Minnesota Duluth  21  16 10- 5- 1 .656  60- 25   
 4 Ohio State        15  14  7- 6- 1 .536  36- 35   
 5 Bemidji State     11  14  5- 8- 1 .393  32- 49   
   Minnesota State   11  16  5-10- 1 .344  43- 52   
   St. Cloud State   11  16  4- 9- 3 .344  39- 59   
 8 North Dakota       1  14  0-13- 1 .036  11- 65  

With 3 teams tied for 5th place, the playoff picture probably won't develop until the very last weekend (the weekend UMD plays Minnesota up at Duluth Marshall's Mars Lakeview Arena, btw)

John Gilbert UMD/Ohio State story

The following is an article by John Gilbert about OSU's unbeaten streak ending to UMD, posted on WCHA.com:

As role-reversals go, this was a classic. Ohio State travels to Duluth to face the University of Minnesota Duluth's perennial women's hockey power - a familiar scene during the eight-year history of the two programs. That's where things became unfamiliar.

A two-part quiz is in order: 1. One of the two teams extends its nation's-best unbeaten streak to 10 games (9-0-1) by cruising to a 3-0 shutout victory in the first game. 2. One of the two teams snaps out of its own nine-game (1-7-1) slump, in which it had scored only one goal in the four most recent games - all losses - by winning the second game.

Which team is which? The easy money would say UMD is the answer to question 1, because the Bulldogs have been on hot streaks every year, and had lost only two of 34 previous games against Ohio State; and that Ohio State would be the answer to question 2, because the Buckeyes have always been competitive, but it has been a difficult quest to reach elite status, and besides, UMD had never had such a prolonged slump.

The logical answers would be: wrong, and wrong, Zamboni-breath!

It is the Ohio State Buckeyes who go into the holiday break as the hottest team in the country, by stretching their streak on Erika Vanderveer's 3-0 shutout. Even though their program-record unbeaten run came to an end in the second game at Duluth, the Buckeyes had long left behind their own five-game losing streak during a 2-5 start by rising to 7-6-1 in the WCHA and 10-7-1 overall. Strong goaltending and defensive play, and balanced scoring all came together for coach Jackie Barto, whose objective-setting Buckeyes fittingly started the 9-0-1 streak with a 2-1 victory over Minnesota, and it lasted through the 3-0 victory at Duluth, in which defenseman Tessa Bonhomme scored in the opening minute of both the first and second periods, and team scoring leader Erin Keys, who assisted on the first two goals, made it 3-0 with her 11th goal, only five minutes into the second.





And it is the UMD Bulldogs who stumbled through a school record slump that reached its lowest point when they were shut out by Vanderveer despite 11 power-plays that were both a tribute to the Buckeye penalty-killers, and a study in ineptitude for a Bulldog team that opened the season 8-0 in the WCHA and overall but are now 10-5-1 in the league and 10-7-1 overall. Program record slump? Four straight losses compare to the fact UMD had only lost three in a row twice - last year and in their first season of 1999-2000. And a and had only one winless streak that went as long as four games, in that first season, when they played top-two rated New Hampshire and Minnesota back to back.

Perhaps it was predictable that when OSU's unbeaten streak ended, and UMD's slump was snapped, it would be of seismic proportions - and it was, as Noemie Marin scored three goals and Tawni Mattila two as UMD went 6-12 on power-plays and romped 9-1 by hurling 50 shots at Vanderveer. But even that couldn't dampen the spirit of the Buckeyes and coach Barto.

"They came out hard, and played with purpose, on a mission," said Barto. "Give Duluth credit."

It was considerably easier to be gracious in defeat than in past years, when losses to UMD were pretty consistent, now that the Buckeyes have cracked the nation's top 10, and have moved up impressively enough to stretch the WCHA's "top three" to a "top four" with Wisconsin, Minnesota and UMD.

This time, Barto set some small objectives for little victories in the third period, and after being outshot 45-17 through two periods and eventually trailing 8-0, Katie Mahoney's goal broke Kim Martin's shutout bid and Ohio State outshot the Bulldogs 17-5 in the third period.

Barto had to be upset about the constant stream of Buckeyes going to the penalty box in both games, with 17 infractions for 45 minutes in the first game - 2:47 of it spent facing 5-on-3 power-plays - and 15 for 38 minutes in the second - unusual numbers for a team that entered the weekend in the nation's lowest percentile of being penalized. That resulted in 23 power-plays for UMD in the two games, to 10 for Ohio State. But Barto held her cool.

"The officials do the best they can, and we try to do the best we can," said Barto, in a wonderfully subtle evaluation.

Always organized, Barto sets goals for her teams, but to suggest that is the reason for OSU's record surge is because of those goals is oversimplifying things.

"Within games, I'll set some goals, and I set some pretty high goals for the season before we started," said Barto. "One was to challenge the top teams in the WCHA, and another was to make the NCAAs.

"I think the strength of our team is that we've had outstanding goaltending, and good team defense, and everyone has been contributing," said Barto. "Keys has been a big contributor on offense, and leads us in goals and assists, but during our streak, I think we found that the girls play hard for each other, and everybody works to do the little things that lead to success."

Keys, who played at Cretin-Derham Hall high school in St. Paul, has emerged as a strong scorer this season and leads the team with 11-13-24. She plays right wing with Peckles at center, and Jody Heywood at left wing on an all-junior line. But other than second line sophomores Morgan Marziali, who has 7 goals, and Hayley Klassen, who has 5, no other forward has more than four goals.

The scoring of the defense has been a real strength. Senior Amber Bowman (5-17-22) and Bonhomme (9-11-20), a junior, form a formidable first tandem on defense that no other team in the country can match, and junior Lisa Chesson (5-11-16) is close behind.

"Tessa Bonhomme, Amber Bowman, and Lisa Chesson are three of the top defensemen in the league, and they're all among our top scorers," said Barto.

Vanderveer, a senior from Bradford, Ontario, is the pillar of strength in goal who has been the beneficiary of the team's uplifted play this season. She had given up just nine goals in the 9-0-1 streak, and for the whole season she stood 10-2-1 with a 1.31 goals-against and a .954 save percentage, and she made 41 saves in the second game, and the nine goals only raised her goals-against average to 1.86, and lowered her save percentage to .938.

"I don't think we helped her much in that one," said Barto. "Erika is a competitor, and this won't bother her."

As for the slowly evolving parity within the WCHA, Wisconsin, Minnesota and UMD are still there, but Ohio State is leading the way for the rest of the WCHA, where Minnesota State, St. Cloud State, and Bemidji State have improved considerably, and North Dakota is rebuilding.

"I don't think anyone can take a night off any more in our league," said Barto. "We played very well and it was an exciting stretch during our streak, but now we'll have to see what happens as we get closer to the league playoffs and the NCAAs,"

Those objectives are still out there, and another streak can wait until after the holidays.

Noemie Marin 'Bulldog Spotlight'

UMDBulldogs.com has a Noemie Marin spotlight up this week.

After last years news filled off time around Christmas, it's nice this year to have little to talk about during the college hockey break.

Halfway point of the season

With the halfway point of the season here, hopefully the month off gives the team time to get healthy. They need Kim Martin to completely heal from her Four Nations injury that shes' played through, and Hough and Jubinville need to be back as well.

Also the new year should bring about Heidi Pelttari's first Bulldog action as she's expected to be eligible come January.

As mentioned before, the 2nd half of the season brings Niagara University to the DECC in what SHOULD be just a tuneup for UMD.

Sid Meier's Civ IV rocks

I finally broke down and bought Civilization IV after looking at it on the shelf at Wal-Mart for months.... After updating my graphics card driver the game runs good and has better sound than any of the other versions.

One thing though, WHY Leonard Nimoy (aka SPOCK from Star Trek) as the narrator? It is great to hear quotes though when you "discover" a new skill/technology, but Nimoy? Oh well.. it's still not that bad.

The Civ franchise kicks ass of course as always.

News Tribune OSU Saturday story

The NEWS TRIBUNE STORY for the 9-1 UMD win.

It mentions a 'to do' list for Saturday's game:

* Lack of scoring: Coming into the game, UMD had been outscored 27-20 in the past 10 games. On Saturday six UMD players contributed goals. Marin had a hat trick and third-line sophomore Tawni Mattila scored twice.

* Ineffective power play: UMD had 13 power plays — including two 5-on-3 advantages — in Friday’s loss. Six of Saturday’s goals were power play goals.

* A lot of perimeter play with very few actual shots on net: The Bulldogs outshot the Buckeyes 50-34.

Finally! UMD wins 9-1 over OSU

First, the USCHO post I made tonight:
--
The powerplay... well, went 6/12 tonight... the BIG difference is.. the PASSING was crisp and they shot BEFORE OSU could get settled rather than shooting into players as much tonight. Rasmussen and Trepanier still did, but they're the 2nd line powerplay.

UMD won 9-1 today (the men gave up a 3 goal lead 3 times to lose in OT tonight btw) in a longggg game. The game went 2 hours 30 minutes.. I swear a FULL hour of that was the 2nd period. Noemie Marin had a hat trick and Tawni Mattila scored TWICE, hopefully that breaks her out of her scoring funk.

Kim Martin played great, stopping 33 of 34 shots. OSU outshot UMD 17-5 in the 3rd, though UMD outscored them 2-1.
--

It's about time they actually blew someone out.. I think they needed that going into a month break before playing Niagara. Not to sound like a proponent of running up the score, but UMD's powerplay has been non-existent this season and they NEEDED the first line powerplay out there even in the 3rd with the game already decided.

News Tribune Friday story

The Duluth News Tribune story for the Friday OSU game.

OSU beats UMD 3-0

UMD lost to Ohio State 3-0 tonight.... they went 0 for 13 on the powerplay and barely looked like they wanted to score on it. Right now, I can't even think of one "highlight" to UMD's game. Tomorrow's an afternoon/evening doubleheader with the women and OSU and then the Men playing Bemidji(they lost to Bemidji up IN Bemidji tonight).

News Tribune Preview

The NEWS TRIBUNE has a weekend preview article up tonight about the OSU series. Ashly Waggoner has been made an assistant captain. Samantha Hough is now out until January when the season restarts. It's a good preview article, posted for Friday's paper I'm sure.

Ohio State's website preview

Ohio State's preview for this weekend's series at the DECC can be found by clicking HERE!

Just to throw a little JINX in the pot ;) OSU's on a 9 game unbeaten streak. From the OSU press release:

NINE AND COUNTING
During the nine-game unbeaten streak, the Buckeyes are 8-0-1 and are out-scoring their opponents 28-9, including a 13-2 margin in the third period. Opponents are 1-of-45 on the power play for just a 2.2 percent conversion rate. Ohio State has scored nine power play goals and two shorthanded goals.

UMDBULLDOGS.com Ohio State weekend

The UMDBulldogs.com weekend preview for the Ohio State series is up. Click the blog title to go see.

From that story, the OSU notes:

OHIO STATE NOTES: Ohio State swept Minnesota State University-Mankato (2-1 and 4-3) back on Nov. 24-25. The Buckeyes moved to 10-5-1 overall with the victories and 6-5-1 in the WCHA. OSU is riding a nine game (8-0-2) unbeaten streak headed into this weekend's series against the Bulldogs. Buckeye junior Tessa Bonhomme tallied a goal and an assist for OSU in Friday's win. She also had the game-winning goal. Jody Heywood scored the other goal of the game with Shelby Aldous assisting on the goal. Erika Vanderveer made 22 saves in net for OSU. Junior forward Erin Keys tallied two goals and an assist and senior Amber Bowman had three assists in Saturday's game. Vanderveer made 19 saves on the night for the Buckeyes to improve 9-2-1 on the year. Ohio State had 42 shots in the game, while MSU had 22.

As I mentioned before.. UMD must sweep this series to make OSU's games at hand not matter as much, to stay in at least 3rd place for the league playoffs.

UMDBulldogs.com player focus: Jessica Koizumi

Instead of a weekend preview, today, UMDBulldogs.com put up a Jessica Koizumi focus, probably the same one that will be in this weekend's game program.

Updated standings, Collegehockeystats.net

Once again, "borrowing" college hockey stats.net's table code for weekly standings:

WCHA Women - 2006-2007 Standings

                         Conference Only                    Overall
                    Pts  GP  Record  Win%  GF- GA   GP  Record  Win%  GF- GA

 1 Wisconsin         25  14 12- 1- 1 .893  57- 20   18 16- 1- 1 .917  80- 21
 2 Minnesota         19  12  9- 2- 1 .792  40- 21   16 12- 3- 1 .781  57- 33
   Minnesota Duluth  19  14  9- 4- 1 .679  51- 21   16  9- 6- 1 .594  52- 28
 4 Ohio State        13  12  6- 5- 1 .542  32- 26   16 10- 5- 1 .656  55- 31
 5 Minnesota State    9  14  4- 9- 1 .321  36- 46   17  6-10- 1 .382  51- 54
   St. Cloud State    9  14  4- 9- 1 .321  34- 54   18  7- 9- 2 .444  54- 57
 7 Bemidji State      5  10  2- 7- 1 .250  21- 40   16  4-10- 2 .312  32- 56
 8 North Dakota       1  10  0- 9- 1 .050   8- 51   16  3-11- 2 .250  23- 64

At this rate, UMD will finish 3rd in the league, Minnesota has 2 games at hand still and so does OHIO STATE, so this coming weekend at the DECC, UMD needs to sweep OSU to get far enough ahead to not worry about OSU catching up

UMDBulldogs.com story

While there's no Duluth News Tribune story online, UMDBulldogs.com of course has the GAME STORY. The Text:

The power play once again proved to be the decisive factor between the University of Minnesota Duluth women’s hockey team and Harvard University on Saturday as the Bulldogs dropped a 4-0 decision to the Crimson, with three of the goals coming on the power play for Harvard.

The Bulldogs (9-6-1) were assigned 11 penalties for a total of 22 minutes in the contest while Harvard was saddled with five penalties for 10 minutes. UMD went 0-for-5 on the power play and Harvard (11-1-0) went 3-for-11.

“Both teams competed extremely hard tonight and both teams played extremely well. The puck went in for Harvard and didn’t go in for us,” said UMD head coach Shannon Miller.

Harvard’s Caitlin Cahow scored at 8:18 of the first period and scored her second goal of the game at 9:55 in the second period. Sarah Vaillancourt assisted on both goals and Julie Chu assisted on Cahow’s goal in the first period of play.

Jenny Brine put the Crimson up 3-0 near the end of the second period when she scored at the 18:47 mark. Katie Johnston assisted on the goal.

Vaillancourt scored the final goal of the game at 16:48 of the third period. Cori Bassett earned the assist on the play.

Kim Martin, UMD’s freshman netminder, took the loss for the Bulldogs. She made 19 saves in the contest and allowed three goals. Martin split time in goal with senior goaltender Riitta Schaublin, who allowed one goal and came up with nine saves. Harvard’s Christina Kessler earned the win for the Crimson, making 20 saves.

The Bulldogs will be in action on Friday and Saturday against Ohio State University (Dec. 8-9) at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center. The puck is set to drop at 7:07 p.m. on Friday and at 3:07 p.m. on Saturday.

Saturday afternoon/night is a DOUBLE HEADER... the Men play Bemidji State at 7:07 that night.

Harvard sweeps UMD

I didn't get home to listen to most of the game, but it sounds like Harvard pretty much dominated the Saturday game against UMD, winning again. I'll post the newspaper and umdbulldogs.com stories of course Sunday afternoon

UMD drops game 3-1 to Harvard

Short article from the NEWS TRIBUNE from the Harvard game... UMD spend a ton of time short handed during the game.

The UMDBULLDOGS.Com story.. about the same, with the same quote from coach Miller.

Harvard weekend previews

The weekend series preview from UMDBulldogs.com is up now.

I would imagine the games are on KDAL this weekend since the Men's team is in Alaska and won't start until and hour and half after the women are done. Go to WARPRADIO.com and try KDAL and if that one isn't playing the game put in WDSM and it will be there.

Harvard Crimson newspaper article

Since there isn't a UMDBulldogs.com preview for the Harvard series, I went and found an article on Harvard's student newspaper 'The Crimson' online.

The article is HERE and talks some about UMD, and that "December is the cruelest month"

Katey Stone, the Harvard coach is quoted in the article (about UMD):

Duluth will be the only team from the west that the Crimson will face all season.

“I don’t know if [playing the Bulldogs] is any more significant than playing UNH and Dartmouth,” Stone said. “You don’t have a whole lot of option with the scheduling and you take what you can get.”

Duluth boasts the nation’s deepest and most talented goaltending corps with senior Riita Schaublin and freshman Kim Martin, the young hotshot responsible for Sweden’s stunning elimination of the U.S. in the semifinals of the Olympic tournament back in February and the shutout of the Badgers this weekend.

“Duluth has a couple of Olympians and is right up there in the top 10,” said co-captain Julie Chu after Saturday’s game. “We absolutely need to bring our best game.”

Jessica Koizumi WCHA.com offensive player of the week

While they snubbed Martin, WCHA.com did name Jessica Koizumi as the offensive player of the week. I believe they named Koizumi because they didn't the previous weekend when she had 5 goals against Mankato (4 in the Friday tie). UMDBULLDOGS.com Koizumi award blurb.

Harvard weekend preview from umdbulldogs.com I'll post when I get home this evening.. its' not up yet on their website

Kim Martin USCHO.com Defensive Player of the Week

For her efforts against Wisconsin, Kim Martin was named the USCHO.com DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK! WCHA.com snubbed her of the weekly award, giving it to a goaltender at Bemidji State who shut out a team who had been shut out 8 times already this season.

USCHO's text:

Defensive Player of the Week
Kim Martin — Minnesota-Duluth
Kim Martin

Thanksgiving weekend produced more top-notch goaltending performances than any other this season, but one stood out above the rest. Freshman Kim Martin, best known for her role in Sweden's Olympic semifinal upset of the United States, proved she could be just as dominant in the college game with a 25-save shutout of No. 1 Wisconsin. The result snapped a 26-game Badger unbeaten streak and a four-game UMD winless streak. The Stockholm native followed up with 32-saves in a 1-0 loss on Saturday. For the season, Martin now leads the nation with a 1.02 goals against average and a .962 save percentage.

UMD ranked 7th!

With their victory over Wisconsin Friday, UMD has jumped back up to 7th from 10th in the USCHO.com women's hockey poll. They're tied with St. Lawrence University for the 7th spot going into the Harvard series.

WCHA Standings November 27th

Today, I'm going to attempt thanks to collegehockeystats html source (they can come beat me up if they want) code, the WCHA standings table THEY use. I know little about tables without stealing someones code unfortunatley. Maybe some day I'll have a month or two to learn some of that.

WCHA Women - 2006-2007 Standings

                         Conference Only                    Overall
                    Pts  GP  Record  Win%  GF- GA   GP  Record  Win%  GF- GA

 1 Wisconsin         25  14 12- 1- 1 .893  57- 20   16 14- 1- 1 .906  65- 21
 2 Minnesota Duluth  19  14  9- 4- 1 .679  51- 21   14  9- 4- 1 .679  51- 21
 3 Minnesota         15  10  7- 2- 1 .750  33- 18   14 10- 3- 1 .750  50- 30
 4 Ohio State        13  12  6- 5- 1 .542  32- 26   16 10- 5- 1 .656  55- 31
 5 Minnesota State    7  12  3- 8- 1 .292  31- 41   15  5- 9- 1 .367  46- 49
   St. Cloud State    7  12  3- 8- 1 .292  29- 49   16  6- 8- 2 .438  49- 52
 7 Bemidji State      5   8  2- 5- 1 .312  18- 33   14  4- 8- 2 .357  29- 49
 8 North Dakota       1  10  0- 9- 1 .050   8- 51   14  2-11- 1 .179  19- 62

Ok.. it cut off the 'overall' column but I only wanted the WCHA standings anyway :)

News Tribune Saturday Wisconsin Article

Today's News Tribune article. Again it's a phone interview with coach Shannon Miller.

From the article

“It was really more their offense than defense,” UMD coach Shannon Miller said by telephone. “They really controlled the puck and controlled the game. We played really good defense. We were on penalty kill for nine minutes in the second period. We did a fantastic job on PK. After that there was no wind in our sails. Nothing left in the legs.”

It also says Suvi Vacker could be out 6 weeks with her knee injury... yikes, but.. it could have been worse.

UMD loses 1-0

UMD lost the 2nd game to Wisconsin 1-0 today. The game was good, even though UMD got outshot by a bunch. Kim Martin gave them a chance to win the game anyway.

Suvi Vacker went down with a knee injury, they wrapped her knee and then players helped her off the ice, rather than a stretcher or anything like that. Waggoner took a checking from behind penalty also, so UMD played a large part of the game with 4 defensemen.

News Tribune article, Victory over Wisconsin

It's really short, and only a telephone interview with Miller, but it's still something. The article for Friday's UMD victory!

UMD Ends Wisconsin's 26 Game Unbeaten Streak

UMD beat Wisconsin 2-0 today for Wisconsin's first loss in 26 games. Kim Martin got the shutout win, stopping 25 shots for the Dogs.

Jessica Koizumi kept her hot streak going, scoring the game winning goal early in the 2nd period on the powerplay.

UMDBULLDOGS.com game recap

GO DOGS!

News Tribune Koizumi/Marin article

Today's News Tribune article focuses on Marin and Koizumi's relationship as best friends, foosball opponents, and linemates.

On their lack of success in the NCAA tournament:

Both arrived as freshman the season following UMD’s last Frozen Four title. In 2003 the Bulldogs won their third consecutive national title. The past two years UMD has fallen during the regional tournament. The void plagues both players.

“Of course we want to be really good leaders and take things up a notch from last season,” Koizumi said. “We’re trying right now to make it a serious point to our teammates how important it is to win every single game that we’re supposed to win. To be serious and prepare for the games — it doesn’t matter who we play. We both remember freshman year. We want to make it serious. This is our last season and we both want [national championship] rings. We are not leaving this school not having rings.”

No info on Lanzl, Martin, Hough or Jubinville's injuries so we'll have to wait and see (or hear if you're listening to the game on the radio.)

Weekend preview up now

The UMDbulldogs.com preview for the Wisconsin series is up...

BULLDOG NOTES: Minnesota Duluth failed to get back into the win column last weekend as the Bulldogs skated to a 5-5 tie against Minnesota State-Mankato on Friday and lost 5-3 to the Mavericks on Saturday. Friday’s tie was the first time that Minnesota State has taken a conference point at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center, with Saturday’s win marking the first time that Minnesota State-Mankato has defeated the Bulldogs at the DECC in the all-time series between the teams. In Friday’s contest, senior forward Jessica Koizumi scored four of the Bulldogs five goals, while sophomore forward Sara O’Toole scored UMD’s other goal. Koizumi also scored a goal in Saturday’s loss and junior forward Karine Demeule and freshman forward Saara Tuominen scored UMD’s other two goals. Freshman forward Elin Holmlov had a total of six assists over the weekend. Senior goaltender Riitta Schaublin took the loss in both games for the Bulldogs, moving her record to 4-2-1 on the season.

WISCONSIN NOTES: The Badgers extended their school-record unbeaten streak to 26 games with a weekend sweep at Bemidji State last weekend. Wisconsin skated past the Beavers 6-2 on Saturday and 4-2 on Sunday to earn its fifth sweep in six conference series this season. In Wisconsin's two wins over BSU, the line of Meghan Duggan, Erika Lawler and Angie Keseley combined for 13 points (five goals, eight assists). Senior Sara Bauer and junior Jinelle Zaugg continue to rank first and second in the nation in points, respectively. Bauer leads the country in points with 26 and assists with 19 while Zaugg is second in both goals (13) and points (21).

UMD Heads to Madison

There isn't a weekend preview up yet from either team, but UMDBulldogs.com women's hockey page usually has it up already so it could be any time now.

There were rumors that Michaela Lanzl might be ready to play for this weekend, and hopefully that's true.... also, UMD needs Samantha Hough as well. Hough didn't play Saturday after making her return from knee surgery Friday, and there weren't any reports as to soreness etc that kept her out Saturday so I guess we're all SOL until someone says something.

Still haven't seen any Kim Martin news either, hopefully she's recovering from whatever injury she suffered at the 4 Nations Cup tournament. If not, I believe in Riitta Schaublin's game enough to say that the series against Mankato was a fluke series for her.

Wisconsin coach Mark Johnson was quoted during his weekly press conference, about the UMD rivalry, in contrast to the Gopher rivalry...

JOHNSON: Yeah. In the four-plus years I’ve been coaching, the games against Duluth, even my first year, when they had several Olympic players and a very good team and defending national champions, they’re always competitive games. They’re fun. It brings both teams’ level of play up.

And when you compete against one of the top clubs in the country, it’s a fun week of preparation because the players get excited about competing against Duluth or Minnesota, maybe just a little bit more than some of the other teams. And obviously some of the games we’ve had over the last three or four years helps the intensity of the rivalry.

The rest of that interview, while not pertaining to UMD is HERE.

USCHO Women's thread

The original UMD women's thread on the USCHO fan forum has been retired with 1001 posts. WOW! The NEW THREAD is up and I've decided to do it by season instead of one long 2+ yr thread.

The old threadlasted exactly 1 week LESS than 2 years!

News Tribune Mankato Saturday story

The NEWS TRIBUNE article from Saturday's game, without any Coach Miller, or player, interviews/comments.

Mankato beats UMD, takes 3 pts on the weekend.

Tonight.. UMD deserved to lose, which they did. The ref (Ludwig) didn't call much of anything on EITHER team. UMD turned the puck over a ton, and the defense was even sloppier than last night. Jessica Hawkins was the only player who seemed to have any step on the Mankato skaters at all.

Riitta had a rough weekend, that I don't remember her having in the past. A lot of times she might bail a sloppy defensive play.

Samantha Hough didn't play tonight, her knee must not have responded the next day.

Britni Kehler covered up all rebounds for Mankato tonight. She was a biggest reason (besides UMD being sloppy) that Mankato got 3 pts this weekend.

This is *not* how you want to be, heading to Wisconsin.

News Tribune Friday game story

Friday's News tribune game article

UMD/Mankato tie 5-5...

Same as my USCHO post, except for the *last* line...

Game ends in a 5-5 tie......

Chris Perrault could have reffed this game better than this Robert(I think that's his name) Ludwig guy. UMD deserved the penalties THEY took, but he missed an obvious checking from behind that happened right in front of him, a couple 2 handed slashes, and had to THINK about making calls when it came to Mankato penalties.

One instance, Riitta Schaublin got slashed after the whistle.. he waits 15 seconds then skates behind the player and decides she should take a slashing penalty. UMD looked rusty coming off the week off, but still if they would have lost, I wouldn't' say Mankato beat them as much as the no-calls against Mankato would have been the reason. This isn't the normal, my team got screwed whining either, he literally didn't get much right tonight.

In another instance, Mankato tried to dump the puck in, it went off Koizumi who was on the bench and down the ice and Mankato got a scoring chance.... guess who was standing right next to the UMD bench? Ludwig, of course.

The game stats aren't up yet but the shots were close to 40 apiece.

Koizumi had skate problems right after her game tying goal with 7 seconds left in the 3rd, and had to miss a shift in the overtime.

Koizumi was huge, scoring 4 goals tonight. Her 2nd goal was the great...Blais had the puck and was on the sideboards, Koizumi was behind the net and they made eye contact and Blais made a perfect pass to Koizumi who moved into a spot wide open for an almost empty netter.

Welcome back #17.

(The one thing not in my USCHO post:)
I think I just flushed a Ludwig.

News Tribune Series Preview

Lots of good stuff in the News Tribune article for the Mankato series. Three big notes, first Samantha Hough should be back tonight, and Kim Martin has an injury from the 4 nations cup that will keep her sidelined this weekend. The other big note is that Julianne Jubinville:

* Jubinville, a senior forward who remains sidelined with a concussion, must be symptom-free for two weeks before she will be allowed to return.

Check out the full ARTICLE

Also, the weekend preview which says Michaela Lanzl is still out with her own injuries from a few weeks ago in St. Cloud.

UMDBulldogs.com Weekend Preview, New Recruit early signings

The UMDBULLDOGS.COM page is up, as well as an article about the Early Signing Period:

UMD announced on Wednesday (Nov. 15) that forwards Haley Irwin (Thunder Bay, ONT), Marie-Andreé Leclerc-Auger (Sherbrooke, QUE) and defenseman Tara Gray (Toronto, ONT) have signed national letters of intent to play for the Bulldogs starting in the 2007-08 season.

UMD/Mankato weekend preview (from Mankato's website)

UMDBulldogs.com doesn't have the weekend preview up yet, but Mankato's website has their version of the weekend preview posted.

MSU-UMD Series: The Mavericks are 2-27-2 against the Bulldogs all-time. Earlier this season, Minnesota Duluth captured wins of 3-1 and 6-1 at All Seasons Arena on Oct. 6-7. Last season the Mavericks went 0-3-1 against the Bulldogs, earning a 3-3 tie at home on Feb. 24. The Mavericks’ two wins came in 2003-04, when they opened the regular-season by sweeping the visiting Bulldogs, 4-3 and 3-2.

UMDBulldogs.com 4 Nations story

UMDBulldogs.com has a 4 nations cup story online about the players who took part in the tournament. Click on the title of the blog entry as always to go to the link.

DECC Arena News Tribune 11/14

Today's News Tribune mentions the DECC being something that needs to be a top priority on the states lists this winter.

FROM the article (whole article can be found by clicking blog entry title)

In May, lawmakers failed to find money for the DECC expansion in the waning moments of the 2006 session.

Since then, legislators have said the project would be a top priority. And Gov. Tim Pawlenty said the expansion was “95 percent” sure, although he said that months before his narrow re-election win. In the meantime,construction costs for the project have gone up about $5 million.

University of Minnesota Duluth officials have said they need a new hockey arena in order to stay competitive in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association. The expansion project calls for a 6,630-seat arena and a 700-car parking ramp.

The project would have to come in the form of an emergency borrowing bill, as lawmakers don’t normally draw up a major project list until 2008. The state money would be matched by an increase in the city food and beverage tax, which Duluth voters OK’d but legislators would also need to approve.

Rep. Mike Jaros, DFL-Duluth, said the DECC remains a high priority. But the deal needs Pawlenty’s help, he said.

Former Senate majority leader Dean Johnson of Willmar liked the project, but he was defeated last week. Walli’s job this session will be to get the project on the desk of Sen. Larry Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis, the new majority leader. Pogemiller is “very familiar with our projects,” Walli told councilors Monday afternoon.

Snow/Rain forecast Friday/Saturday

Just a note to anyone who might be heading north from Mankato, the forecast is for steady rain/snow Friday and Saturday in Duluth. That doesn't mean don't come watch your team, it just means drive safe ;)

collegejerseys.com

If you're looking for New *OR* game used college jerseys, whether football, basketball, or of course HOCKEY (they're building a hockey collection), check out collegejerseys.com

4 Nations Cup, one last look

The same post as my USCHO.com post:

One last look at 4 nations cup... and UMD current and former players who played IN it in their teams' 4 games. I was gonna post this yesterday but got busy in the afternoon...
In no certain order, but by national team instead

Finland:
Heidi Pelttari 2 goals
Nora Tallus didn't score
Saara Tuominen had 2 goals 2 assists
Mari Pehkonen(i know, only spent 1 year here) 1 goal 2 assists

Sweden:
Elin Holmlov 2 goals
Maria Rooth 2 goals 2 assists
Erika Holst 2 goals 1 assist
Kim Martin 2 games 10 GA 74/84 shots 88% 1-1 record (Beat Finland, lost to Team USA)

Rachael Drazan, while no longer a Bulldog, played but didnt' score in 4 games.

Caroline Ouellette scored 4 goals and 3 assists.

Canada beats Team USA 5-2

It took Team USA to be down 4-0 before they scored a couple goals, but.. they lost the gold medal game 5-2 with Chandra Gunn in net. Natalie Darwitz and Kristin King scored the Team USA goals. Caroline Ouelette had a goal and assist, and Kim St-Pierre got the win for Canada.

Now that the 4 Nations Cup is over, we can look forward to next weekend's UMD series with "Minnesota State" Mankato.

Search box

Just a quick reminder that you can go to the bottom of any blog page and use the search box to find either stuff ON the blog, or stuff on the internet with GOOGLE. Just use the little bubble and choose the blog, OR on GOOGLE and find the information you want that way. :)

USA/Canada Final 3 pm CST

The USA/Canada 4 nations cup final starts at 3 pm CENTRAL, 4 Eastern. Hockeycanada's live stats page for the final is HERE

Canada won the opening game 3-0 over Team USA, and so far it hasn't been at least announced on the sheet if Gunn or Vogt (who played better the first game against Canada ) will be the starting goaltender.

The Bronze medal game between Sweden/Finland livestats is HERE

Sweden dominated their first matchup 8-3 and is up 1-0 right now halfway through the first period.

USA/Canada 4 Nations Cup final set

TEAM USA in a way, got it's revenge on Sweden, beating them 7-0 today to set up a USA/Canada 4 nations cup gold medal game. Erika Lawler is the only Team USA player to score 2 goals in the game, with 6 players scoring a goal. Krissy Wendell and Natalie Darwitz' names flood the score sheet with assits though. Wendell had 5 assists and Darwitz had 3. Kim Martin took the loss for Sweden, stopping 41 of 48 shots.

New DECC Arena, time to push Pawlenty

Now that the elections are over, and he was elected again, its' time to put pressure on Pawlenty concerning the new DECC Arena funding. He promised it last year and bailed on Duluth. Even though I'm not a Duluth resident, most of the money I do spend from September through March happens to be IN Duluth.

THIS ARTICLE by Bob Kelleher of Minnesota Public Radio from February of 06 mentions Pawlenty's support just before Duluth residents voted *FOR* the 1/2 percent restaurant sales tax that would pay for Duluth's half of the arena.

Pawlenty had said Duluth had to solve their employee health care crisis before he'd ever support an arena, which is stupid, because they're two totally different subjects. One which Duluth itself has to pay for and fix, and another which residents have voted to pay for themselves through the downtown sales tax.

Anyway, its' time to start pushing now, rather than wait for Pawlenty to do something.

Team USA beats Finland 5-2

Behind 2 goals and 1 assist from Krissy Wendell and 1 goal 3 assists from Natalie Darwitz Team USA beat Finland 5-2. Game stats of course can be found HERE

Shari Vogt played the whole game in net for the win.

Team USA (and the other 3 teams) are off tomorrow, but Canada does play Sweden tonight.

USA/Finland underway

The hockey canada site doesn't have it hot linked.. but today's USA/FINLAND game that's midway through the first period livestats IS up on that website at THIS LINK

Forgot to mention Suvi Vacker playing for Team Finland yesterday, of course, shes in the game against Team USA also

Team USA loses to Canada

Team USA dropped it's first game, to Canada, 3-0. They were outshot 42-16 in the game. Chandra Gunn and Shari Vogt split the game in net for Team USA.

Team USA was 0/10 on the powerplay and Team Canada was 1/13, so there were 23 powerplays in the 60 minute hockey game.....

Live stats working good

The live stats on the link I posted before is working really well, so it should work for all of the games in the tournament just go to THIS SITE and click on the game you want to see the stats from.

Team USA is down 2-0 after the first period

Team USA vs Team Canada live stats

The Team USA vs Canada game starts at 6:30 pm CST, 7:30 Eastern time, and LIVE STATS are availble for the game HERE from hockeycanada.ca

Stats/results from the rest of the games and the tournament are available HERE

While supporting UMD players and former players on all the teams, since it's Canada vs USA....

Sweden beats Finalnd 8-3

Go Dogs! Elin Holmlov scored 2 goals, Maria Rooth and Erica Holst each scored one, and Kim Martin stopped 13 of 16 (ok, so that's not that high a %) in Sweden's 8-3 win over Finland in the four nations cup.

Saara Tuominen had a goal and an assist, while Heidi Pelttari (Bulldog come January) scored 2 goals for Finland in the game.

Game stats are available by clicking HERE

Don't forget to vote!

If you read this on Monday, November 6th, DON'T FORGET TO VOTE Tomorrow! :) As always, if you don't vote, you can't complain.

Firefox Browser

Just reminding people that Firefox is the best way to view most if not all blogspot blogs. Firefox's popup blocker works better than anything from Internet Explorer or running an extra program.

Four Nations Cup Schedule

Hockey Canada has the best Four Nations Cup coverage so far, with the main page HERE Team USA plays Team Canada Tuesday night with Sweden and Finland playing the early game.

If you're lucky enough to get TSN you can watch the USA/Canada game and the gold medal game (Nov 11)as well.

TNS.CA also has a decent Four Nations Cup coverage, at least with the "rankings" and a schedule on their page HERE

I still haven't found any way to listen to games or anything on the Internet...

Mississauga Aeros beat Team Sweden 7-0

I'm going to try and keep up (posting)with some of the Four Nations Cup this week since there's no Bulldog action. I won't be anywhere near Kitchener,Ontario but I'll post any articles I find.

Team Sweden lost 7-0 in the game to the Mississauga Aeros of the NWHL Saturday. Obviously they didn't have their #1 goaltender Kim Martin. There's no story on the game yet.. but there might be on the Aeros website at http://www.aeroshockey.org/MississaugaAeros/aeros_team_news.html where I found the score.

News Tribune Saturday article

The story from Saturday's game, in the News Tribune. UMD is now off until the 17th/18th against Mankato. Friday night's game is at 7:30 because of the Christmas City of the North parade. Get to the DECC parking lot early, between 4:30 and 5, then you can hang out by the William A Irvin/or the KBJR(NBC) building where there's bleachers and they televise the parade from, or walk the skywalk out to Superior street and watch some of the parade.

Gophers finish sweep of UMD 1-0

UMD dropped the 2nd game of the series 1-0 today in what sounds like it was a great game... more when the game article(s) get posted.

UMDbulldogs.com Friday game story

The umdbulldogs.com game story is up.. click the thread title to go read it

UMD drops first game 5-3

UMD started out 2-0 but ended up dropping their first game of the year to the Goofers, 5-3. I watched the men's team lose to the Goofers 3-2 at the DECC so I'll wait until the News Tribune and/or UMDbulldogs.com reports and post those tomorrow during the day

St Paul Pioneer Press preview

The Pioneer Press has about as small a preview for the weekend as the News Tribune does.

News Tribune Weekend Preview

The News Tribune weekend preview is online with *NO* mention of Kim Martin not being at Ridder for the weekend. There also aren't any 'probable' lines posted, though the article does say Lanzl is out indefinitely, so she won't be playing of course this weekend. The article is HERE.

Kim Martin in Canada Saturday?

Since I don't know who left the comment, I'll just thank whoever it was for the comment with the story of Kim Martin's Team Sweden playing agaisnt a NWHL team Saturday night, and her advertised to be there. I guess we'll only see when it happens. The article follows and is available by clicking on the title here

The Mississauga News
Nov 1, 2006

The Mississauga Aeros survived a shaky start last night in National Women's Hockey League action at Malton Arena to take a 3-1 decision from the Oakville Ice.

After falling behind 1-0, the Aeros fought back with goals from Kelly Bechard, Jen Botterill and Kate Algood. Sarah Love earned the victory in goal.

On Sunday afternoon the Aeros pounded the visiting Ottawa Raiders 7-1.

Mallory Deluce scored twice for the winners. Other Mississauga scorers included Sommer West, Heather Logan, Jen Raimondi, Bechard and Haley Irwin.

The Mississauga Aeros host Team Sweden in an international exhibition hockey game this Saturday at Iceland Arena beginning at 7 p.m.

Sweden won the silver medal in women's hockey at the Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, upsetting the United States in the semi-finals. Sensational goalkeeper Kim Martin will be in the line-up for Sweden.

Of course, Canada won the gold medal in Torino with current Mississauga Aeros Cheryl Pounder, Botterill and Sami Jo Small making contributions.

Admission to the Aeros vs. Team Sweden game is free.

The Other side's weekend preview

The Goofers weekend preview from gophersports.com is available by clicking on the title of this entry. They're giving free entry to anyone with a Gopher football ticket stub to Saturday night's game... I guess that's a little consolation to fans who've watched Mason's team play like crap all year?

UMDbulldogs.com weekend preview

The UMDbulldogs.com game preview is online, you can click the title of this entry to go see it, or click HERE.

UMD is ranked 4th and UMTC is ranked 8th in the current USCHO polls.

UMTC (for now) holds a 16-13-4 advantage in overall head to head matchups.

'Toole Time

Because of the Binnyrus post on the USCHO forum, and the fact that I was bored for a few minutes....



The whole 'Toole Time' thing is very fitting, and definitely better than Toole Box that I've heard also

Happy Halloween

I almost forgot, Happy Halloween, dang its' COLD today

Individual Honors continue to come!

In what was relatively obvious, Sara O'Toole is the WCHA.com offensive player of the week. Her 6 points (4 goals 2 assists) in the UMD 6-0 win over SCSU made that a lock, in my mind.

While Kim Martin could have been the league's pick for rookie of the week, she instead received the Defensive Player of the Week for her 31 stops in that same Saturday game against SCSU.

The Rookie of the Week, btw, was Kelli Blankenship from the Gophers.

On blog entries where I've quoted a website, such as this entry quoting wcha.com you can click the title (there are 3 colored dots before the title signifying a link) and go to the website.

GO DOGS!

Bring on the Goofers

It's that time of year, the UMD Women head down to Ridder Arena this coming weekend to exterminate some rodents. Last year the teams split the 4 games 2 wins apiece, each winning 1 road and 1 home game.

The Gophers are coming off a loss to Ohio State University, while UMD's coming off the sweep of St. Cloud State.

I believe, that if UMD wins their game Friday night, they'll sweep the Gophers, winning Saturday as well.

UMD finishes sweep, O'Toole scores 4

Today, UMD finished the sweep of SCSU, with 5 minutes left in the game now UMD is up 6-0. Sara O'Toole has 4 goals as I type this. A much cleaner game than all of the descriptions/accounts from the Friday night game. Good to know that Lanzl's sitting up in the press box with teammates Amie Meyer and Samantha Hough (who it's mentioned had off-season knee surgery and isn't ready to play yet.)

Lanzl out of hospital

As per the pregame interview with Coach Miller, Michela Lanzl's out of the hospital, and in some pain, BUT they don't expect anything long term. O'Toole is taking Lanzl's spots today.

DNT Game Story

The DNT story from Friday is already up *click here*

The good news anyway:

Lanzl went into the boards early in the second period as well and suffered a leg injury. She missed a few shifts, but returned. Miller said Lanzl had head and neck pain but was able to move her limbs.

Obviously no word any further but the good news is she was able to move extremities.

Michela Lanzl taken to hospital

The game story from UMDBulldogs.com is online at http://www.umdbulldogs.com/womens/hockey/index.php?sect_rank=2&story_id=2794.

The low scoring game is likely attributed to the amount of penalties faced by both sides, and UMD having one of its top scoring threats, sophomore forward Michaela Lanzl, having to go to the hospital after hitting the boards.

There aren't any more details yet.. but hopefully there's more details in the News Tribune Saturday.

Dogs shutout SCSU 2-0

Same post as I made on USCHO.com since I was at the men's game and didn't hear details of the game besides what's on collegehockeystats.net

Riitta Schaublin got another shutout as the Dogs win 2-0. At the men's game they announced it was 1-0 going into the 3rd period.

Judging from the game stats, it was one heck of an UGLY hockey game. UMD took 12 penalties for 24 minutes and SCSU took 10 for 23. UMD finished the game shorthanded 5 on 3 but managed to get through that unscaved.

SCSU's Danielle Hirsch took a 5 minute cross checking major.. it's not listed if there's a Game DQ or not though.

Jill Sales got 1st star for her game winning goal in the 2nd period. Koizumi got 2nd star and Riitta's shutout on the road earned her the 3rd star.

Hopefully someone who may have been at the game has more information, especially as to the cross checking major.

Welcome Swedes

Since my sitemeter is showing that there are a *lot* of Swede's reading the hockey blog, welcome to the blog and hope ya enjoy reading...

I dont' know even a tiny bit of Swedish.. but using the Internet, I'll attempt to say:

Välkommen (3 words showed up for welcome?),och, åtnjuta (3 words for enjoy also?). I'm sure I did that wrong but if freedict.com is even somewhat close that would say welcome and enjoy.

SCSU's weekend press release

The weekend press release from SCSU is at *THIS LINK*. Once again it's a .pdf file so you need your pdf reader such as adobe acrobat. It is basically the information you'd find in a game program.

UMD Rouser(school song)

While it may be a bit obsessive, you can download the UMD Rouser .mp3 for your computer. The download(s) are available from this link http://www.d.umn.edu/~deaton/pepband/playlist/songs/umdrouser.htm



Since I am bored tonight, I'm attempting to embed the downloaded song into this post. It will play automatically if you have an mp3 browser plug-in. It's relatively short and by Sunday won't be on the front page of the blog by the end of the SCSU series :)

The Past and the Present

I was messing around on GOOGLE today and came across this picture from a website called Expressen.se While I don't speak or read the language of the magazing the picture of Maria Rooth and Kim Martin celebrating their Olympic Silver Medal expresses well, the past and future of UMD hockey.

UMD Heads to SCSU

The UMDBulldogs.com upcoming series preview is up on their website. SCSU is coming off a sweep of Ohio State.

IF someone might be interested... SCSU's women's hockey page is: HERE

WCHA.com "team notes"

The following is from WCHA.com's weekly recap section "Member team notes:"

Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs
The Bulldogs had five players with three points in the weekend sweep of Bemidji State ... junior forward Karine Demeule led UMD's offense over the weekend, scoring three goals ... senior forward Jessica Koizumi had a two-goal performance on the weekend while adding one assist ... freshman forward Emmanuelle Blais is proving her tremendous offensive power, notching two goals and an assist in two games against BSU to bring her to three goals, seven assists and 10 points on the season ... freshman forward Elin Holmlov tallied two assists in the series, helping prove that UMD's freshman class is packed with scoring threats ... all three of UMD's goalies saw action vs. Bemidji State ... senior Riitta Schaublin made 13 saves for the win last Friday and freshman Kim Martin stopped 14 shots in last Saturday's contest ... sophomore Amie Meyer split time in goal with both Schaublin and Martin during the series ... she stopped a total of six shots in her first two collegiate games

The FULL ARTICLE is available by clicking on 'FULL ARTICLE.'

While it's nothing new that hasn't been reported it's still newsworthy for the period between Tuesday and Thursday where there's little to talk about.

Next up for UMD is SCSU at the National Hockey Center, Friday night and Saturday afternoon.

WCHA Standings as of October 23

Current standings as of October 23rd:

Team Record Pts
1. Minnesota-Duluth 6-0-0 12
2. Wisconsin 5-0-1 11
3. Minnesota 2-1-1 5
4. Bemidji State 2-2-0 4
4. Minnesota State 2-4-0 4
4. St. Cloud State 2-4-0 4
5. North Dakota 0-4-0 0
6. Ohio State 0-4-0 0

News Tribune's Saturday game story

The Game Story is there. I didn't realize there were 877 fans at the game Saturday night. That's a little better than the average number of fans at the game(s).

Understatement of the weekend by Steve Sertich FROM the article:

``(We’re) about six goals behind UMD,” Sertich said as his team’s progress report. “We’ll get better each week. We’re not up with teams of this caliber yet.”

When a team gives up 12 goals in 2 games, yes Steve, that's 6 goals behind.

Dogs finish the SWEEP of BSU

UMD finished the sweep tonight 6-0 over BSU. Noemie Marin scored 2 more goals tonight and now has 8 goals on the season! Kim Martin and Amie Meyer combined on the shutout tonight.

UMD played much better for 60 minutes than Friday nights game. They got ahead by a bunch and kept playing hard throughout rather than letting up and being outplayed even while ahead.

DNT Game report

The News Tribune story from Friday nights BSU game is HERE

Dogs win 6-2, Freshmen remind us they're Freshmen tonight

Jessica Koizumi(2 goals tonight) scored on a dump in from the blue line 29 seconds into the game.. five-hole on Emily Brookshaw and the route was on.. or so we all thought. UMD finished the first period up 5-0 and it didn't seem like they could do anything wrong. Brookshaw looked really shaky in the first period, not just on the dump in that went under her. UMD outshot BSU 25-5 for the period 'enroute' to the 5-0 lead. While the game ended 6-2 I wouldn't call it a route because BSU turned their play up after the first.

From the start of the 2nd period, BSU pretty much controlled the game in my eyes. They only outscored UMD 2-1 for the rest of the game, and were still out shot 13-19, but behind Brookshaw's MUCH improved play they had UMD on their heels more than UMD had them on theirs.

Karine Demeule scored her first two goals of the season tonight, the second the most important as it ended BSU's run in the second period. It was also a *BLAST* from the face-off dot on a rebound.

The freshmen tonight.....*LOOKED* like freshmen. The passing wasn't nearly as crisp as last weekend against North Dakota. I am sure that *LAST SEASON* this would have turned into a nightmare and probably ended up 5-4 or maybe even a tie 5-5 rather than a 6-2 UMD win.

I think that right now, it's a good 'reality' check for the Freshmen, and much better to happen on a Friday night against BSU instead of a Saturday before a road trip. They'll be able to get everything on the right track before heading to St. Cloud (who beat OSU 5-4 tonight.)

Amie Meyer took over for Riitta Schaublin and faced 3 shots in 10:53 of play.

Elin Holmlov Article, News Tribune weekend preview

Today's DNT has a long Elin Holmlov article, comparing her to Maria Rooth and talking about a back injury that kept Holmlov out of the olympics.
DNT ARTICLE

THE DNT's weekend preview with BSU is HERE

The Bulldogs spent much of the last series on a penalty kill and are 32-of-33 this season. UMD’s power play is at 34.8 percent and combined, the units are the best in Division I hockey.

BSU's game preview for this weekend

Since most of the teams dont' really have threads on USCHO for them, I decided I might as well post the opponents weekend press release as well. BSU's release for this weekend's game is HERE!

This release is in .pdf format so make sure you have your .pdf reader like Adobe Acrobat updated. The strangest thing on this press release is

wLocation: Minnesota
Duluth is located in Duluth, Minn.

As Homer Simpson would say...


The one error on that press release is the link to the games.. the games are on 710 AM WDSM. As always, go to WARP RADIO and type WDSM into the call letters box on top. Then you can 'click to listen' on the WDSM page.

YouTube Hockey stuff

On a day when there's little more to talk about before a series (Thursdays) I decided to post a couple YouTube hockey videos.. they're not specifically women's hockey or anything but they'll be rather funny, or maybe a great play.. something along that line.

The first one is Japan VS Denmark, the Japanese player scores on his own goaltender.



THIS next one has 4 defensive turnovers and one umm.. mascot getting, well...


Here's a long almost 9 minute video of the Canadian women's gold medal team playing against the band Bare Naked Ladies (BNL). More funny than hockey.


Enjoy

New USCHO poll ranks UMD 4th

UMD's climbed from 8th, to 7th, and now to a 4th place tie with Mercyhurst in the USCHO women's hockey poll. The poll can be found here. Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and St. Lawrence rank in order ahead of Mercyhurst and UMD. The Gophers rank just below UMD in 6th.

BSU weekend preview

The BSU series preview is up at UMDBULLDOGS.com:

UMD Bulldogs.com

Mike Hatch pledges support for new DECC Arena

Today's NEWS TRIBUNE has an excerpt Mike Hatch and Tim Pawlenty visit to duluth. The short article is for Hatch's full support of the new DECC arena being in the 2007 budget. From the article:

“They say they supported it. But when they had the chance, at the end of the session, they didn’t come through,’’ Hatch said after a media event on the current DECC hockey rink. “There was a chance to get it done last year and they didn’t do it.”

The full article online: Mike Hatch Supports DECC article

Jamie Rasmussen is Rookie of the Week

For the second weeek in a row, UMD has the player with the WCHA Rookie of the Week honors. This week its' Jamie Rasmussen:

WCHA Rookie of the Week
Jamie Rasmussen, D, Minnesota Duluth
Oct. 17, 2006 - The University of Minnesota Duluth's Jamie Rasmussen, a freshman defenseman from Garden Grove, Calif., had three assists in the unbeaten Bulldogs' 4-0 victory over North Dakota last Saturday (Oct. 14). UMD also recorded a 5-0 win over the Sioux last Sunday (Oct. 15) to complete the WCHA sweep.

A participant in the last two USA Women's Development Camp's in Lake Placid, N.Y., she was named the California-Selects Defenseman of the Year for the past four years (2001-2002 to 2004-2005).

Others nominated this week: Holly Roberts, Fr, F, St. Cloud State; Nicole Rawlings, Fr, F, Bemidji State; Kyla Sanders, Fr, F, Wisconsin; Brittany Francis, Fr, F, Minnesota.

To see the FULL article go to WCHA.com

DNT Story about Sunday and Special teams

Sundays game recap in the News Tribune mentions UMD's work on special teams, both the powerplay AND penalty kill

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/articles/index.cfm?id=25878§ion=sports&freebie_check&CFID=2313347&CFTOKEN=14177379

WCHA standings as of October 15th games

Also taken from Collegehockeystats.net the WCHA conference standings



1 Minnesota Duluth 8pts 4gp 4w 0l 0t
Wisconsin 8pts 4gp 4w 0l 0t
3 Bemidji State 4pts 2gp 2w 0l 0t
Minnesota 4pts 2gp 2w 0l 0t
5 North Dakota 0pts 2gp 0w 2l 0t
Ohio State 0pts 2gp 0w 2l 0t
Minnesota State 0pts 4gp 0w 4l 0t
St. Cloud State 0pts 4gp 0w 4l 0t

umdbulldogs.com game reports vs Sioux

The UMDBulldogs.com stories from the Sioux series

Saturday's game story

Sunday's game story

Team stats as of four games, via collegehockeystats.net

Dogs Finish the SWEEP of North Dakota

Today's game was a LOT better than yesterday, as far as the chippiness and ugly play goes. UMD won 5-0 and finished the weekend strong, AND got the "4th liners" into the game in the 3rd period.

After this weekend:

Jessica Koizumi got on the board with her first 2 goals of the season and now has 2 goals 6 assists on the season to lead the team in overall points.

Myriam Trepanier only scored 4 points (2g+2a) last season and already has 5 points with 2 goals 3 assists.

Saara Tuominen after 3 points last weekend, only had 1 assist this weekend but that's still 4 points on the season.

Noemie Marin has been burying the puck to start this season. She's already got 7 points on 6 goals and 1 assist.

Jamie Rasmussen was huge on defense on the weekend with 4 Sunday assists. Her family in the stands was also huge so to speak. Sunday though one of them mentioned one of the DECC ushers told them they had to leave their shirts down instead of displaying their UMD letters, or they'd be excused from the game. She along with Elin Holmlov and Trepanier on the powerplay are what UMD has been missing.

So far this season UMD's powerplay is 8 of 23, not counting the 3 of 7 against the Whitecaps. If this 35% powerplay can mantain through the season, this will be a much better end of the season result.

The penalty kill has only given up 1 goal on 33 for a 97% kill rate. This weekened against North Dakota the puck was in the Sioux side of the ice on many of those penalty kills. Hopefully against the league's better teams, they stay out of the box more.

A while back I mentioned an expectation of 4 shutouts in a row by UMD goaltenders. Well, now we've seen 2 of the 4 in the back to back shutouts of NoDak. Bring on BSU.

IF you like what you're reading

If you like what you're reading and have a few seconds, click on the bloghub button on the right and 'rate' this blog. If not, it's not big deal; who knows, someday there might be a post about your team that you actually might like.



Ok, off to get ready to go to Duluth for today's game.

Dogs handle Sioux 4-0 in VERY physical game.

UMD won 4-0 at the DECC today in what was the most physical **NON** UMD/Minnesota women's hockey game I've ever seen. The referee lost control relatively early on and never really regained it. He seemed to be out of position the whole game and turning his head about the time stuff happened. I'm not being homer on this one, because *BOTH* teams got away with a ton of stuff. Chippy might be an understatement of how the game turned in the second period, mostly due to the way the game was called. If the linesmen had called some of the stuff behind the play it could have cleaned up some. This is a much different North Dakota team than I remember. The third period was relatively clean compared to the first two, though maybe that was because nothing was called.

There were 'roughing to the head' penalties and 'elbowing' penalties if that's an indication of the physical play.

Riitta Schaublin played her normal great game, even though she only had to deal with 18 shots. Noemie Marin scored 2 goals from relatively "point blank" during the game. Koizumi didn't score any goals, but had 3 assists on the 4 UMD goals.' Lanzl scored her first goal of the season to close the game out, a sweet double deke, first on the defenseman then on the goaltender.

Kim Martin's expected to start Sunday, as mentioned in the News Tribune article in the previous short post.

News Tribune Kim Martin article

First off tonight, the News Tribune ARTICLE about Kim Martin and some of Shannon Miller's ideas about goaltender rotation.

Kim Martin article from CSTV.com

The article is a couple weeks old (Sept 29th) but there hasnt' been any reference to it yet so here's the LINK to a CSTV.Com Kim Martin article.

UMD vs North Dakota DECC 3:07 Sat/Sun

Here's the UMDbulldogs.com preview. Still no Jubinville report so I'll guess she's out for this weekend until the News Tribune article saying she's healthy and playing.

Tuominen is WCHA Rookie of the week

Saara Tuominen has been awarded the WCHA rookie of the week award based on her 2 goal 1 assist performance helping UMD sweep Mankato. Congrats to her.

From WCHA.com

Oct. 10, 2006 - In her first WCHA series on Oct. 6-7, Tuominen, a freshman from Vuorentausta, Finland, had two goals and an assist in two road victories over Minnesota State.

Others nominated: Brittany Kirkham, G, North Dakota; Meghan Duggan, F, Wisconsin; Kelli Blankenship, F, Minnesota; Raelyn LaRocque, F, Ohio State; Meaghan Pezon, F, St. Cloud

Send more articles/stories from games

Anyone can do what Just_a_fan did, you can email or yahoo im your thoughts on the weekend, or you can click on a comment link and leave a comment, though the comment might not get noticed right away, and is harder to read by others than a post that I can copy/paste into the blog editor.

Regular comments are more than welcome also.

GO DOGS!

Great Mankato Series Comments left by Just_A_Fan

JustAFan-UMDW'sHcky said...

Hi… I made the 4 hr trip (one way) from beautiful northern Mn to hot windy southern Mn and it was worth the $$ in gas… UMD looked speedy & solid for most of the weekend… Friday night was a slow start – Mankato is much speedier this year than what I remember from last year – Maggie Fisher and Lindsay Macy having several breakaways- but they were also a lot more physical on Saturday, reminiscent of St Cloud.

On Friday, in the first period, UMD didn’t seem to have the speed/ energy they had in the first 10 mins against the Whitecaps, at least in the first period. But, UMD picked things up throughout the game, and Saturday they looked really impressive. The freshman forwards Blais, Tuominmen, and Holmlov were very impressive, as were the freshman defense Murray and Rasmussen.

The powerplay on Saturday seemed to really click, passes were crisp. The only negative I saw was how UMDs d-players would pinch in and Mankato would be able to get past for a breakaway. But maybe that’s because of who we have sitting in net? Both Riita and Kim looked good, and the goals Mankato got were due more to a break in UMD’s defense than anything else (my opinion)…

The only other comment I have is about the arena – All Seasons needs to get a shot clock, or their announcer needs to give some stats to the game…. I didn’t know the shots until I checked online once I was back in Duluth…

Looking forward to the games this weekend – should be lots of speed on the ice!


Just_a_Fan

BAD Scheduling

Last night I was looking at the women's schedule thinking about plans to head down to Ridder Arena to watch the series against the Gophers. When I looked at the men's schedule the Gopher men are up here the same weekend the Bulldog women go down there. That's the dumbest scheduling I think I've ever seen. While they aren't neccessarily going to make a schedule that suits everyone, you'd think for attendance purposes they wouldn't put the schools against each other one on the road and one at home on the same weekend. If you're going to schedule UMD VS Minnesota men and women on the same weekend, do it smart and make it a double header at the DECC or Ridder/Mariucci.

The other thing to bitch :) about today is again the UMD/Minnesota women's series in Duluth is being held at Mars/Lakeview arena on the Duluth Marshall school campus instead of the DECC. They screwed this up a few years ago and had to play at MARS also, so this isn't exactly a new thing, but that arena doesn't make for a good setting for college hockey any more than Wessman Arena does.

DNT weekend recap article

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/articles/index.cfm?id=25250§ion=sports

There is the Duluth News Tribune "article" on Saturday's 2nd game, giving UMD the sweep of the weekend series.

UMD's current record: 2-0 (2-0 conference)
Next up North Dakota Saturday/Sunday series at the DECC

UMD Sweeps Mankato, Up Next North Dakota

UMD finished the sweep today, the game is 6-1 in the middle of the 3rd period right now. Saara Tuominen stood out with 2 goals (so far) today and Myriam Trepanier has a goal and a couple assists. Riitta Schaublin wasn't tested much so far this game, as Martin really wasn't yesterday.

UMD hosts North Dakota next weekend at 3 pm both days. Anyone going to the men's game Saturday might as well leave early and make it a doubleheader. You can catch the women's game, then use the downtown area for dinner, then catch the men's game against U-Mass-Lowell. The Vikings are off next sunday also so the 3 pm hockey game would give people something to do next Sunday afternoon.

Dogs beat Mankato 3-1 Friday

I didn't get home from the high school football time soon enough to hear even the post-game show tonight so I had to wait until collegehockeystats.net posted the score to see UMD had won.

Basically copying my USCHO post now for this since I didn't get to listen to the game.

"UMD scored 2 powerplay goals in their 3-1 win over Mankato. Blais got a goal AND an assist to start off her college career in the right direction. Marin scored twice and Koizumi got 2 assists.

Tomorrow's game is on AM 970 WGEE, the Midwest Communications ESPN Radio affiliate because of college football on 610 and 710. Short turnaround of course, the game starts at 3:07 pm."

Just judging from the stats, the team is flying and it's great to see they stayed out of the penalty box for the most part.

WCHA.com article

Here's a sweet article by John Gilbert on WCHA.com's website. The article focuses on the Bulldog women's offseason, and some about the Whitecaps game.

Blitz-Linie

Blitz-Linie translated from German to English is 'Lightning Line,' which I mentioned in the USCHO forum is a perfect fit for any line Michaela Lanzl is on from the story in the News Tribune today. "Shocking return" is the article's title and talks about how Lanzl was struck by lightning this summer at a BBQ. The article also mentions that she's, for now, classified as a senior by the NCAA because of her age (25.)

Because of football tonight, the game will be on the internet on WDSM's 710's link (posted in previous blog entry.)

Also on the news tribune the lines for tonight:

"PROBABLE LINES

Sara O'Toole-Noemie Marin-Jessica Koizumi
Michaela Lanzl-Saara Tuominen-Emmanuelle Blais
Karine Demeule-Tawni Mattila-Jessica Hawkins
Erin Olson-Elin Holmlov-Kirsti Hakala

DEFENSIVE PAIRS
Jill Sales-Myriam Trepanier
Ashly Waggoner-Jaime Rasmussen
Suvi Vacker-Sarah Murray

GOALIES

Kim Martin, today; Riitta Schaublin, Saturday"

UMD Women's Radio broadcasts

For those who don't live in the area and might want to listen to the UMD Women's game against Mankato, you can catch the game via warpradio at http://www.warpradio.com/popTuner.asp?id=5230

When there are men's games being played at the same time the games are on http://www.warpradio.com/popTuner.asp?id=5233 this link instead. If you don't find it on one try the other :) As everyone says, UMD Women's hockey is one of the only in the country that EVERY game is broadcast on the radio.

Beta Blogger test

I just updated to blogger's beta so I'm doing a short post to check and see how it turns out and make sure everything's good still

GO DOGS!

Dogs at Mankato

If anyone's taking the 3 hour trip down to Mankato for this weekend's opening series, OR if someone from Mankato might read this, you can send your thoughts on the weekend's series here to have it posted on the blog. You will be credited by either the name you give or the screen name you give to be posted. This is true for any series the Dogs play, even a home series, though I'll post about those myself also.

Hopefully this year I manage to get to a road series or two unlike previous years. Off subject: The Twins didn't play well and lost the playoff opener 3-2.

High Expectations

As posted on the USCHO Bulldogs Thread:

This year I'm looking forward to:

4 straight UMD shutouts of Opponents (looking at the beginning of the season)...
5 players (at least) with the oppurtunity to amass 30 (goals plus assists) points in a season...
A powerplay that actually punishes the opponent for taking dumb penalties...
More than 800 people at a game at the DECC (ok.. maybe THAT one's far fetched?)

I'd also say I'm looking forward to the NCAA tourney hosting at the DECC but it's too early (isn't it?)

06-07 SCHEDULE

I'm going to attempt to post this season's schedule, copied and pasted from collegehockeystats.net

Overall Conf
Date Opponent Result Record Record
Sat Sep 30 MINN. WHITECAPS EX 7:07 pm
Fri Oct 6 at Minnesota State WC 7:07 pm
Sat Oct 7 at Minnesota State WC 3:07 pm
Sat Oct 14 NORTH DAKOTA WC 3:07 pm
Sun Oct 15 NORTH DAKOTA WC 3:07 pm
Fri Oct 20 BEMIDJI STATE WC 7:07 pm
Sat Oct 21 BEMIDJI STATE WC 7:07 pm
Fri Oct 27 at St. Cloud State WC 7:07 pm
Sat Oct 28 at St. Cloud State WC 2:07 pm
Fri Nov 3 at Minnesota WC 7:07 pm
Sat Nov 4 at Minnesota WC 7:07 pm
Fri Nov 17 MINNESOTA STATE WC 7:37 pm
Sat Nov 18 MINNESOTA STATE WC 7:07 pm
Fri Nov 24 at Wisconsin WC 2:07 pm
Sat Nov 25 at Wisconsin WC 2:07 pm
Fri Dec 1 at Harvard NC 7:00 pm
Sat Dec 2 at Harvard NC 7:00 pm
Fri Dec 8 OHIO STATE WC 7:07 pm
Sat Dec 9 OHIO STATE WC 3:07 pm
Sat Jan 6 NIAGARA NC 3:07 pm
Sun Jan 7 NIAGARA NC 3:07 pm
Sat Jan 13 ST. CLOUD STATE WC 3:07 pm
Sun Jan 14 ST. CLOUD STATE WC 3:07 pm
Sat Jan 20 at Bemidji State WC 7:07 pm
Sun Jan 21 at Bemidji State WC 2:07 pm
Fri Jan 26 at Ohio State WC 7:07 pm
Sat Jan 27 at Ohio State WC 4:07 pm
Fri Feb 2 WISCONSIN WC 7:07 pm
Sat Feb 3 WISCONSIN WC 7:07 pm
Sat Feb 10 at North Dakota WC 2:07 pm
Sun Feb 11 at North Dakota WC 2:07 pm
* Sat Feb 17 MINNESOTA WC 3:07 pm
* Sun Feb 18 MINNESOTA WC 3:07 pm
* - Mars-Lakeview Arena

If the formatting worked after the copy/paste there should be a nice looking schedule, thanks TO collegehockeystats.net

UMD Heads to Mankato next weekend

First up.. the News Tribune article for the UMD/Whitecaps game
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/articles/index.cfm?id=24695§ion=sports

The season officialy starts for the Bulldog women Friday night/Saturday afternoon at Mankato, and the home season starts the week after when UMD hosts the Sioux(or whatever they'll end up being called) for a Saturday/Sunday 3 pm series.

Bulldogs beat Whitecaps 6-1

While watching the NHL playoffs last year I decided I liked the 2 referee system. Tonight watching the Bulldog/Whitecap game, I've decided that women's hockey does NOT need the 2 referee system. The 2 referee system will only work if both of them are on the same page.

UMD beat an under-manned Whitecap team 6-1 tonight at the DECC. The game was tied 0-0 after the first period with UMD outshooting them 17-15 in the first period. The 2nd period, UMD spent more than half the period on the powerplay, scoring 4 powerplay goals in the period. The Whitecaps looked worn out in the 3rd period, after all of the special teams play in the 2nd period (besides, they played the night before at Ridder.) For a team that couldn't buy a powerplay goal in the 2nd half of the season, the powerplay was amazing.

Everyone who said Jamie Rasmussen was great, definitely was right on the mark with their comments. Every freshman will make those 'freshman mistakes,' and her 2 that I saw were pinching on defense during the play and leaving her D-partner in an oddman situation when the play got reversed.

Riitta Schaublin and Kim Martin split the game, with Riitta seeing more of the tough action early when both teams moved the puck up and down the ice. Martin looked good, and the only goal given up was sort a fluke that found it's way under her arm and rolled behind her to get knocked in the net.

Sarah O'Toole started off where she finished last season with 2 goals.

Emmanuelle Blais, a Freshman from Montreal, is one of the fastest players I've ever seen wear the UMD jersey. She flew to open pucks, and scored a nice give and go goal from Rasmussen.

Everyone that dressed for the game got on the ice and played well. If this team plays the powerplay like they did tonight, look for some big goal scoring numbers.

All set up and ready

Ok, I think I got the small blogspot bugs out of the template stuff. First it posted 3 sections of 'links' then put them on the bottom of the page, etc. Now I think it's all good and ready to go.

Small request of people who might attend road series from either the UMD fan's perspective or someone who might be a fan of the home team, to send in (if you want) posts from road games this year. I will post your entries and credit you the name you provide, your choice of either a 'screen name' or your own name.

Dogs host Whitecaps

UMD hosts the Minnesota Whitecaps of the National Women's Hockey League( NWHL) tonight as the season opening game. Julianne Vasichek, Caroline Ouellette, and Allison Lehrke; all former Bulldogs are supposed to play for the Whitecaps tonight.

UMDbulldogs.com press release for tonight's game mentions:

UMD will dress a majority of its roster but will not skate junior Juliane Jubinville, junior Samantha Hough and freshman Elin Holmlov, due to injuries.

First Post, Introduction

This blog I decided to create is for fans of the UMD Women's hockey team. You can write your own blogs/posts for here by emailing me your post at the following link--> Email Button. Send pictures as well and I'll post them to the blog. If you don't have a way to host them I'll host them for you through my own web server.

This blog isn't an affiliation *TO* UMD, just created as a fan of both the men's and women's hockey teams. This blog's focus, though, will be the women's hockey team (or women's hockey in general.) This being the first post, it may take a while for traffic to stream in, but I think it can be worth the time.